Constant reminders of 1930s Germany & it makes you wonder did half the country learn any history in school or heard a single story from their grandparents or parents? Critical thinking is a lost skill. In all this, I’m grateful for a talented intelligent woman and her clear sighted fans.
Constant reminders of 1930s Germany & it makes you wonder did half the country learn any history in school or heard a single story from their grandparents or parents? Critical thinking is a lost skill. In all this, I’m grateful for a talented intelligent woman and her clear sighted fans.
I stay pissed at those who know of my cousin, 19 years old when he was killed in WW2. And they still support our current Nazi cretins. Propaganda says that chump is saving America while he is actively following Hitler’s playbook. Pushback has been non-existent from our MSM. Why is that?
Cause they think the convicted felon adjudicated rapist will lower their taxes. And they think if they kiss his a$$ now he won’t shut them down later - total fools.
Plus, racism, misogyny, and narcissism are rampantly fed by propaganda in America. As Heather's book states, we never really won the Civil War. Trump's answer to his racism against Kamala was so embarrassingly feeble in the debate. We all know his birtherism lies about Obama is spawned by his fear of a very successful and darker-pigmented person who demonstrates being more intelligent, educated, erudite, capable of speaking coherently without a prompter, loved by his family and the world at large, and drawing HUGE audiences was a direct hit to his fallacy as a superior, white dominant male.
As if any Magat could admit a darker-pigmented person could be intelligent, educated, competent, etc., Pensa! Someone somewhere said the dog whistle has turned into a tuba. Chump is merely blowing farts that trigger his bigot fans... may they all spontaneously combust.
Total, unless you are rich, then he has your back. For the less affluent, it’s likely the racism, misogyny, and religious insanity, and insanity it is. I know enough to know that he’s a religious phony, a phony patriot, a phony excuse for a man, and has the empathy of Hannibal Lector.
JD, he is a a bag of monstrous festering cancerous air without one redeeming human quality. All he does is whine and tell lies. I did love the debate because she dominated him. I noticed the camera had some shots of him from the side which made him look like this hulk who just fell out of a cave. I can't remember any similar shots of her, but I may be wrong. She did speak directly to the TV audience which was an asset.
And various writers have noted that he wouldn't look at her. And of course that her handshake left him flusters [it must be early - I meant "flustered" of course. Which it should not have, of course. I guess he does not understand common politeness. (Duh)
Terry ….AND Trump won’t bust monopolies but he will bust unions. He will let corporations run amok - no government regulations to prevent grift and pollution. He’s their guy. However, I did note some corporate support for Kamala AFTER she announced that her plan to raise corporate taxes was much softer than Joe’s. Coincidence?
I don't care what the corp tax rate is as long as it is similar to the rest of us, and we can get the corps to pay the taxes they owe each year. Same with rich people and the Trumps of the world who work hard to evade paying any taxes with all their schemes.
For that, I think we'll need a major revision of the tax code, and a change in policy from enthusiastically preferring capital over labor to one more favorable to labor - more socialist, may I say? I'd be all for it, but it will require years of work and litigation and pushing back on lobbyists. So, HARRIS/WALZ 2024 - 2040!
There are 'tremendous' , life changing monetary threats / promises being tossed around on gQp networks. Upcoming election is a 'must win' for all the conspirators to avoid jail time and preserve their financial lives. >> https://www.axios.com/2024/09/12/leonard-leo-conservative-groups-funding
I share your disgust. This morning on NHPR an analysis of the debate included questioning whether Harris's expressive facial reactions to tfg were actually practiced for Tik Tok memes??? AND such claims by tfg that " you can send Billy to school..." and he'll get gender transformation surgery and that "dogs and cats are being eaten in Ohio" constituted "hard debate points" just leaves me stunned and pretty upset!! DEBATE POINTS??? THESE ARE INSANE POINTS!!! This stuff is out of the world crazy and some in the media are STILL "sanesplaining". What in heavens is wrong with these people?? Perhaps they should find work elsewhere...like advertising???!!!
Unfortunately, the MSM has "conservative," extremely wealthy nut cases at the helm, a la Murdochs, Musk, and Bezos. Seriously. What astounds (and sometimes scares me) is how the right-wing thinks that so many ridiculous people will be the wave of the future.
TV rots our powers of concentration and our society. To what extent is American culture a product of corporate media? The technology is not to blame, but rather how it largely applied as a sales tool. The person who invented the first practical television system said that he had "created a monster" after seeing what it became. He would not let his kids watch it saying it did not want it to be part of their "intellectual diet". That might sound snooty, but Mr. Farnsworth grew up on a remote farm. He likened how one plows a field to the lines one used to see on analog TV screens that converted serial information into a 2D image.
In the 1960s and '70s there was salient public anxiety about commercial media becoming too socially influential. Now we mostly accept it as a fact of life.
Doesn't it remind you of what computer tech designers say? They feel the same about computers, which are way more dangerous than tvs in controlling minds. They collect our personal data and algorithmically control us as consumers and influence thinking and brainwashing politically.—on a massive scale. How many times have you had an offline conversation and afterward, your phone and computer sent you ads for exactly what you had just discussed? It is petrifying. It is also petrifying how many people are addicted to social media and how negative it is for those for all ages to handle so many made-up comparisons with others or the new, vacuous careers as "influencers."
I know how impacted my own mind has been for eight years of trying to fight this wannabe dictator and his bizarre minions. I have not been able to focus well or read books because I know enough history and studied cult leaders and how they form. I was petrified the first time I heard Convict 34+ speak at one of his rallies in 2016. That dominant male persona Immediately reminded me of a baby Hitler in the way he used repetitive brainwashing tactics. I was put in YT jail for stating that online.
Yesterday, I deliciously finished a thick Barbara Kingsolver book and realized how much I enjoy reading FOR FUN, and the craft of a great writer. I owe my returned focus to Joe Biden for agreeing to step down and support Kamala for the next POTUS. We will continue to be in capable hands with her at the helm. At the same time, we need to keep educating ignorance by increasing massive critical thinking skills across this land at home, in schools, and online.
My children were born on the cusp of the 70s. I have never owned a TV. They watched it for two hours at their friends' places after school until I got home from work. Books, ballet, sport, theatre, and we went to the cinema. And music - theirs and mine.
Very similar to our approach in the 70s and 80s: we owned only a small portable tv that we kept in a closet. We put a tv guide with it, and allowed each child to schedule up to four hours of tv per week. Our three children often forgot to watch their scheduled tv for the week. It was very low priority. Of course they occasionally saw tv at friends' houses, but most kids played outside after school and on weekends.
We didn't have a TV in our home in the 50's when I was a kid. By design. We also listened to a wide range of music from Latin records my mom collected to musical theater albums to jazz to classical. I also got classes in ballet, modern dance, drawing, painting, and acting. We also went to kid concerts and theater.
When we did finally get a TV my younger sister and I could only watch while Mom was at work or when she slept in weekend mornings. I read books. I'd like to believe it all made me a critical thinker rather than a mere consumer of advertising-disguised-as-entertainment.
I was born in the late 40’s. My Father didn’t allow a tv in our home. I watched it on occasion while late babysitting.
We had piano, flute, dance lessons, books books books and hiking and conversation with and about nature. Then off to college to become a teacher.
We once rented a tv during the morbid and emotional trauma caused by Kennedy’s assassination.
I chose not to have children, but know that I would not have allowed any screens ( cell phones) in their lives today. That is where I see the saddest development of young and old.
Yes, Jean(Muriel), but do you own a cat? Apparently that's the defining characteristic of women who don't reproduce, whether by choice or by happenstance.
I have two!! Meow meow. Several of my cats over the years lived to be 23 years old. I have been , since a small child, in love with cats. My father loved them too. I love horses too!🐈⬛🐈🐴🦄🎶👏🏻🥰🤣😂
I had more fun building a TV in an electronics course than watching it. Though there were periods of watching a lot with parents, we had several gaps in even having a tv in the house. After the one I built had the flyback transformer fail, we didn't get another until we got a small portable to watch the 1st Space Shuttle Launch. I watched the Apollo 11 moon landing on an even tinier portable at the gas station across he street from my parent's house.
J L, we not only accept the influence of commercial media as a fact of life, but we carry our televisions in our pockets so that we can view the latest “news” from the moment we awake until we go to sleep.
Yes tv rots our brain but I think social media and the internet have done even more damage to society. Practically no one can focus or concentrate for very long, critical thinking is gone, the division and hatred has exploded in the last 10 years or so due to the convicted felon adjudicated rapist using it to spew his hatred everywhere and stir up hatred esp of of minorities and women. Not to mention all the mis and dis information flooding the internet.
Right. In another time, a TV in the living room always turned on in the evening. We thought of nothing else but watching that new media having replaced the radio and FDR Fireside Chats. Screens do inform but too much atrophy’s the brain. Parents made the horrible mistake giving their children cell devises and psychological studies now find the negative effects of this. And worse, social media has damaged young minds for two generations.
I suppose one might call this site social media, but the likes of Facebook seems to me to exploits people at least as much as empower them. I avoid sites that push things at you. Push media makes us passive spectators. There is a place for that, but it can't sustain democracy. Bowing to Mr. "Only I Can Fix It." is exactly what democracy is not. The truth is only we can fix it.
I have used a computer since 1990 for college and then work, Terry. I signed up for social media when it became popular, but I never developed a taste for it; conversations like these are as close as I come. I don't own a TV, but when I did I used it to watch streaming movies. I listen to podcasts or watch them on YouTube. That's how one can sidestep the mis and dis info, algorithmic pandering, etc. Computers don't kill thought, poor education does.
The Internet is much the same phenomenon with new wrinkles. Again, not the technology itself, but how it is dominated. I naively thought that the decentralized architecture of the Internet was inherently democratic, and while I has that capability, as demonstrated here, i was wrong to believe it would resist plutocratic domination. The Internet was created with the public's money by the Department of Defense. For years it was a cooperative DIY environment of monochrome monitors and text only. When Internet multimedia was enabled by Tim Berners-Lee at the CERN particle physics laboratory, the World Wide Web exploded, as, content -wise, a DYI phenomenon. Now commercialization and political propaganda dominates the medium. I should have known that the outcomes of ANY technology depends on who is using it and for what purpose.
TVs are best for entertainment. Ours is black all day long. One hour of news, maybe. Then later, a movie, perhaps. Unless I turn on the ROKU fish tank screensaver. I like how the eel slides in and out of his cave. I am tempted to name him you know what...but perhaps not. I respect eels too much.
Bill, we just cut Comcast cable and now have an antenna which picks up the local stations we want as we do watch an hour of news and sometimes Masterpiece on PBS. We also have a couple options for TV sports because Comcast can't reach an agreement with the Big Ten where Oregon now resides. Other than that, we stream and enjoy productions that, by and large, are not filmed here. We both read voraciously.
Unfortunately a lot of people's (especially the young's) time is predominantly the computer, ipad or phone. Questions don't have to be asked or remembered - "How many yards in a mile? Strike if you looked it up. No need for formal "knowledge any more - or thinking. Google will tell you all. You don't even have to think. . . or question. It's all really easy
What's wrong with looking up an answer to something you're curious about, Lady Emsworth? I absolutely agree that it's great to have relevant data stored in one's natural memory (vs. RAM), but as a nearly 77-year old, I can assure you that memory fades, and it's wonderful to be able to refresh it by online search.
Of course, one of the problems about posting comments, is that it's not a conversation - who has the time?
I look stuff up all the time - no problem with that. But at my stage of life,nobody is asking me to spend precious brain hours learning things off by heart, that are only learned for the sake of passing an exam. And that I will never, ever use again.
For instance - sines, cosines, logarithms.
Though I will say, I have used Pythagoras' theorem quite a bit. . .
I think that information in natural memory tends to become better integrated into one's overall map of reality than freshly "looked up", even if a look-up was its original point of contact. I find that stews are always better the second or third day, more flavors fortuitously come foreground, yet mingled, integrated into the whole. Stuff "cooks" in the mind as well.
That said, at 77 and never the worlds most precise person anyway, I regularly use the Internet to sharpen a memory, or to supplement it. It is a boon to obtain information so widely and easily.
And I dearly love being able to refresh my memory of old legal cases (holdings, usually), synopses of books I read a long time ago and have since donated, definitions of words so my speech and writing is as precise as I want it to be, etc. I have PLENTY of information available for daily use stored in "the little grey cells", but it's information I use regularly. I don't think I ever knew how many yards were in a mile (when would that ever be useful? - I'm asking seriously), but conversions from degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit, or centimeters to inches, etc., I have on hand.
If I may, I think it's a grave error to assume younger people don't think or question simply because information is readily available. There have always been butterflies flitting around from topic to topic after the equivalent of nectar, and there have always been ants, working to store information - in my opinion, it's a mistake to generalize and thereby disparage all young people.
I live in a metric country, Lynn. That's the only reason I have 1760 yards to a mile embedded in my brain. How else am I going to estimate what she's talking about when google maps tells me to turn left in 300 meters? This is only to inform you how many yards are in mile. It falls into your category of "information used regularly" for me, but is probably superfluous to most. My gray cells are preoccupied with bilinguality. I didn't make any comment about young people in my post about online references. I think you're referring to Lady Emsworth's post to which I replied.
Young people are young people, as were we, and our duty is to embrace and empower them. I think we always need to be aware of what we are teaching them, directly and indirectly; by instruction and by example. Will they (and how many) copy puerile and self-centered behavior we see in society today, or endearingly reject it? Do we let them see enough of the caring, responsible behavior we are capable of as well?
In my experience, parents try to prepare kids for an idealized world, then drop the pretense once they are "of age". Ideals are a good thing, but they require consistency to be realized and persevere. The rules we teach kids in the classroom and playground seem to go out the window when we turn to the ways we actually practice politics, and too often in the workplace as well. It's really hard not to take the devil's bargain without sufficient cultural support.
Good post JL Graham. Like the wheel, fire,, gunpowder, and many other inventions of mankind and womankind, television has ability to do great harm, as well as benefit humanity. The late author, renowned scholar, Neil Postman discussed the issue of television madness in his book, Amusing Ourselves To Death. Also potent and valuable reading, his "Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk" worthy of a look. When we can find it, calm is the balm we need going forward. Time hurries on, going forward. Always forward!
Calm is the balm! What I loved, in the "debate", was K Harris's spontaneous and frank laughter whenever Trump said something truly ridiculous. Her eyes sparkled with fun.
A focused, centered adult projects competence in levity, and even in anger. Trump is just a bully. It is something of a mystery to me why anyone would look to the latter for leadership.
I LOVED Amusing Ourselves to Death when I read it 30-some years ago! I amuse myself now by painting, designing furniture, and cooking. I do research online about herbal benefits so I can include plant-based remedies/preventatives in my cooking. Does anyone know how to get turmeric stains off of clothing and cookware?
That reminds me of an article by the late and very great Katharine Whitehorn back in swinging London - How to choose a carpet for your bedsit: same colour as your favourite wine. (What a wordsmith: in an article on preparing Christmas dinner: "staring into the turkey's gaping maw". ) P.S. I now have a marble cooktop, and just apply undiluted dishwashing liquid vigorously with an abrasive sponge and the turmeric disappears. You have to be quick.
I have not dealt with turmeric stains per se, but we have a nice holiday tablecloth that showed more stains every time it was washed. I soaked it overnight in with some of an "oxy" laundry soak and was amazed by the result. It removed all the old stains with no evident damage to the cloth or print. None were of turmeric though.
Mr Farnsworth was actually a relative. The Farnsworth parents, or grandparents, really, didn't watch television. The ones that now watch FOX are now Trumpers.
Cool. As an nearly lifelong electronics enthusiast (it kind of started before I was 5) I am pleased to make your "acquaintance". I also applaud his victory against rapacious RCA.
True. And most of us do not know how to protect our online identity from hacking.. now carried out by artificial intelligence (AI). Be Aware. And stay Strong… nonetheless!
Just read The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger, a best selling German novelist and playwright at the time. He wrote it while in exile in 1933 originally as an anti-Nazi screenplay that the British PM offered to bankroll. When the conservatives in that government killed it out of reluctance to antagonize Hitler, Feuchtwanger turned it into a novel. Per the intro, "it sold an estimated quarter-million copies across the globe...yet it did nothing to alter the appeasement policies" of, well, everyone. It's a great and revealing read. Highly recommend.
Here’s an attempt to define “critical thinking”. I’ll start by defining what critical thinking is not.
An idea pops into tRumps head, and he doesn’t stop to think about it. He just uses it like when an alpha male chimpanzee comes across a tree branch lying on the ground and decides to swing it every which way in a dominance display.
A critical thinker reflects about who is being served versus who is paying the price before responding.
We live in a social system, and the way we respond changes the system for better or for worse. If our response is adaptive, then things are likely to get better. If our response is maladaptive, then things are certain to get worse.
Sometimes we don’t know what to do, but we need to do something. No response is a maladaptive response in that the system is changing regardless of whether we are adapting to the change. So, we often need to learn with experiments whilst hopefully keeping the blast area as small as possible. But ultimately, our response will not be adaptive until our understanding of the system's current state is sufficiently accurate. And that is challenging.
The easy part is knowing that we are serving the system at our short-term expense, and then benefitting in the long term from the system’s strength, or we are benefiting in the short term at the system’s expense, and then suffering in the long term from the system’s weakness.
James, I believe critical thinking starts with gathering data and moves on to analyze said data using logic. One must put aside bias confirmation, as best one can, and eliminate fallacious "data." What remains is factual, and from facts one can determine actions and attitudes.
I like to distinguish between what I think (opinions), what I believe (values), and what I know (proven facts).
The other important attribute of critical thought is that one changes opinions, values, and accepted facts when new information is discovered. This is especially important in the arena of science, where new research findings often contradict previously held conclusions. The hallmark of poor thinking is to cling to one's original stance regardless of new info. Such individuals often expend more mental energy defending their position than on vetting new info for validity.
Validation and logic are also beneficial in politics. I entertained the idea of RFK Jr. until he publicly discussed bio-engineered Covid virus that would target certain ethnicities. Since ethnicities are not genetically different, such a thing is impossible, plus there was significant evidence that the target groups had succumbed to Covid at the same rate as others. I concluded that Bobby Jr. was either an idiot if he believed this putative research group's theory, or irresponsible if he didn't believe it but gave it a public platform all the same. Either way I deemed him unfit to be our chief executive.
Scientific facts are never entirely settled, which furthers science though constant re-examination, but many conclusions appear to merit a very high degree of confidence. "Clean" logic and evidence provide the confidence. Duplicated experiments should produce the same results, or region of results. Science is always updating. I think an archetypal exchange was evident in a NYT story from 2004:
Dr. Shenker said it would be great to find out that string theory was right.
From the audience Dr. Greene piped up, "Wouldn't it be great either way?"
"Are you kidding me, Brian?" Dr. Shenker responded. "How many years have you sweated on this?"
But if string theory is wrong, Dr. Greene argued, wouldn't it be good to know so physics could move on? "Don't you want to know?" he asked.
The notion that "dispassionate" research is performed by passionless people (eg, "Mr. Spock" isn't it at all, but rather the "kiss the joy as it flies" willingness to honor reality (so far as we can best determine) rather than one's druthers, as the authority; and as you indicate. Some people won't learn because they are too attached to an idea.
RFKjr seems like a very lazy thinker, with unearned influence. I believe that the possibility of race specific viral agents has been discussed speculatively by some geneticists, but no such thing appears to currently exist. There are genetic differences related to race, but they are trivial; not at all the proof of superiority or inferiority self-aggrandizing supremacists are yearning to see. RFKjr's understanding of what vaccination actually does to forewarn the human immune system in truly appalling.
This from Prof. Carlos Frenk, Dept. of Physics, Director of the Institute of Computational Cosmology, Durham University: "If it turns out to be that the universe is not made up of cold dark matter, I will be rather depressed. Given that I’ve worked all my life on cold dark matter, I would be disappointed, but not for very long, because that’s the way that science is. You have to accept the evidence. If it turns out that I’ve wasted my life working on the wrong hypothesis, so be it. What I really want to know is, what is the universe made of? Let it be cold. Let it be warm. I just want to know what it is."
I'm not very scientifically minded, JL. I got to my appreciation for science's
temporality when an anti-vaxxer I know wanted a public apology from Fauci for incorrect statements he had made early in the pandemic. I said that I doubted he lied or intentionally deceived, he was just wrong. He changed his position when he learned more. She couldn't hear it; she was caught up in villainizing Fauci rather than in considering how information changes one's views, if one is intellectually honest.
She also kept pushing the notion that more study on vaxx alternatives is needed. I thought about how science works and told her that overwhelming evidence from many many disparate studies had demonstrated that vaccines are effective and safe for the vast majority of people. In a time of pandemic, public policy needed to be set from the most conclusive data available in the moment. Those who track a more effective Covid therapy than the current vaccines will undoubtedly publish their findings when and if there ever are any. Meanwhile we have to rely on the best and most prevalent data. She accused me of being a sheeple and ranted about how Fauci and the CDC were preventing &/or hiding alt research in collusion with corrupt big money pharma. I told her I didn't think we could discuss this topic because we approach it from such different philosophies. We are no longer friends.
Saying to me that the hallmark of poor thinking is to cling to one's original stance regardless of new info, and that such individuals often expend more mental energy defending their position than on vetting new info for validity, is preaching to the choir.
Does critical thinking involve gathering and analyzing data using logic? Absolutely. And where confirmation bias is an issue due to excluded or fallacious data, then it needs to be effectively addressed. But that’s not where critical thinking begins.
Hypothetically, two parties are interacting in a familiar context, and their interactions are mutually beneficial, but then a novel context emerges, and their interactions are now unilaterally beneficial. Fortunately, both parties are skilled critical thinkers, and they agree to use that skill to resolve the conflict. The first question is, what is the objective? Specifically, what interest is being served, in what time frame, and at whose expense?
A mutually agreeable objective is a prerequisite to a mutually agreeable conflict resolution. The latter is the analysis part, and the former is the synthesis part.
The odds that two parties will resolve their between-party conflicts even if they both use perfect logic and the same data, but they don’t start by establishing a mutually agreeable objective, is virtually zero. That’s the point I was trying to make in my previous comment.
I see two objectives, James. One is peaceable conflict resolution, the other is determination of facts in order to formulate actions and values. The former requires mutual agreement, as you say; the latter doesn't. You and I may agree on facts, even if they're only provisional, and still decide on different courses of action. For instance we may both want to see Trump defeated and agree that he's a dangerous lunatic. I may prioritize his misogyny and you may feel more strongly about national security; even though both of us agree that each other's reasons for disliking him are true and valid, we're still different people, and because of our different histories will find one trait more loathsome than the other. You may be content with him losing the election, while I may want to see him incarcerated. We don't have to agree on values or outcomes to agree on what is true.
We share the intent of defeating a dangerous lunatic. But why? Because our interpretation of the facts is sufficiently accurate in that regard. That does not mean that when we start with the same facts, we must both end with the same interpretation. The question is whether conflict is the effect of our different determinations, and whether we then have a mutual intent to resolve the conflict.
In other words, there's a tolerance range. Do your own thing and it's none of my damn business. But "I'll mind my own damn business" was the opposite of what Tim Walz was thinking as a teacher when he learned that LGBTQ students were being treated with distain by their fellow students.
So, yes, at some point the determination of facts in order to formulate actions and values does require mutual agreement. What's the alternative? The alternative is some version of "I'm right, you're wrong, and this conversation is over." That is the only message Donald Trump has ever known how to communicate. And practice makes perfect.
I agree, but the question is not whether Trump can control his thoughts and emotions. The question is why otherwise perfectly rational people are thinking of voting for him. And the answer is that they don't practice critical thinking. If they drove the way they think, there'd be so many car accidents it wouldn't be safe to drive.
There were a ton of Americans who openly supported the Nazis and Hitler before WWII. Those types of Americans are still out there and there are millions of them.
Constant reminders of 1930s Germany & it makes you wonder did half the country learn any history in school or heard a single story from their grandparents or parents? Critical thinking is a lost skill. In all this, I’m grateful for a talented intelligent woman and her clear sighted fans.
I stay pissed at those who know of my cousin, 19 years old when he was killed in WW2. And they still support our current Nazi cretins. Propaganda says that chump is saving America while he is actively following Hitler’s playbook. Pushback has been non-existent from our MSM. Why is that?
Cause they think the convicted felon adjudicated rapist will lower their taxes. And they think if they kiss his a$$ now he won’t shut them down later - total fools.
Plus, racism, misogyny, and narcissism are rampantly fed by propaganda in America. As Heather's book states, we never really won the Civil War. Trump's answer to his racism against Kamala was so embarrassingly feeble in the debate. We all know his birtherism lies about Obama is spawned by his fear of a very successful and darker-pigmented person who demonstrates being more intelligent, educated, erudite, capable of speaking coherently without a prompter, loved by his family and the world at large, and drawing HUGE audiences was a direct hit to his fallacy as a superior, white dominant male.
Yes racism and hatred of women are still alive and destroying democracy right now, absolutely!
The hatred reflects fear of POC and women. Underneath it all lies an ocean of feelings of inadequacy and no insight, thus the spewing and vitriol.
Yes you are correct. Hatred implies fear, contempt and their fear of not being able to compete…that’s why they are so desperate for domination.
Big bluster with no core.
As if any Magat could admit a darker-pigmented person could be intelligent, educated, competent, etc., Pensa! Someone somewhere said the dog whistle has turned into a tuba. Chump is merely blowing farts that trigger his bigot fans... may they all spontaneously combust.
No dog whistle, no mo. They are loud and proud.
Well said, Pensa!
Total, unless you are rich, then he has your back. For the less affluent, it’s likely the racism, misogyny, and religious insanity, and insanity it is. I know enough to know that he’s a religious phony, a phony patriot, a phony excuse for a man, and has the empathy of Hannibal Lector.
JD, he is a a bag of monstrous festering cancerous air without one redeeming human quality. All he does is whine and tell lies. I did love the debate because she dominated him. I noticed the camera had some shots of him from the side which made him look like this hulk who just fell out of a cave. I can't remember any similar shots of her, but I may be wrong. She did speak directly to the TV audience which was an asset.
And various writers have noted that he wouldn't look at her. And of course that her handshake left him flusters [it must be early - I meant "flustered" of course. Which it should not have, of course. I guess he does not understand common politeness. (Duh)
I think he also is afraid of female assertiveness. She took the lead and as man who fears women it shook him.
I do hope the memes are brutal that address his backing out of another debate "because he's already won TWO".
No argument on any point. In fact, double down
Hasn't he just promised to erase ALL taxes????
Terry ….AND Trump won’t bust monopolies but he will bust unions. He will let corporations run amok - no government regulations to prevent grift and pollution. He’s their guy. However, I did note some corporate support for Kamala AFTER she announced that her plan to raise corporate taxes was much softer than Joe’s. Coincidence?
If we vote in a more progressive House and Senate, I am CERTAIN Harris will happily accept a higher corporate tax rate, don't you?
I don't care what the corp tax rate is as long as it is similar to the rest of us, and we can get the corps to pay the taxes they owe each year. Same with rich people and the Trumps of the world who work hard to evade paying any taxes with all their schemes.
For that, I think we'll need a major revision of the tax code, and a change in policy from enthusiastically preferring capital over labor to one more favorable to labor - more socialist, may I say? I'd be all for it, but it will require years of work and litigation and pushing back on lobbyists. So, HARRIS/WALZ 2024 - 2040!
Sadly, true
There are 'tremendous' , life changing monetary threats / promises being tossed around on gQp networks. Upcoming election is a 'must win' for all the conspirators to avoid jail time and preserve their financial lives. >> https://www.axios.com/2024/09/12/leonard-leo-conservative-groups-funding
>> https://news.yahoo.com/news/republican-megadonor-leonard-leo-tells-190744612.html
I share your disgust. This morning on NHPR an analysis of the debate included questioning whether Harris's expressive facial reactions to tfg were actually practiced for Tik Tok memes??? AND such claims by tfg that " you can send Billy to school..." and he'll get gender transformation surgery and that "dogs and cats are being eaten in Ohio" constituted "hard debate points" just leaves me stunned and pretty upset!! DEBATE POINTS??? THESE ARE INSANE POINTS!!! This stuff is out of the world crazy and some in the media are STILL "sanesplaining". What in heavens is wrong with these people?? Perhaps they should find work elsewhere...like advertising???!!!
I think they are already. Advertising is as inane as political crap, but not as dangerous
Exactly.
Political advertising has really turned me off. The Lincoln Project does a bang up job. Dems need to learn a lesson from them
Unfortunately, the MSM has "conservative," extremely wealthy nut cases at the helm, a la Murdochs, Musk, and Bezos. Seriously. What astounds (and sometimes scares me) is how the right-wing thinks that so many ridiculous people will be the wave of the future.
And therein lies our problem
Ignorance. They truly don't get it JD.
What Terry said, JD, plus chump supporters/surrogates are ignorant fools
Sadly, some are people I once respected, especially firemen. Have some in family that I thought were “solid.”
TV rots our powers of concentration and our society. To what extent is American culture a product of corporate media? The technology is not to blame, but rather how it largely applied as a sales tool. The person who invented the first practical television system said that he had "created a monster" after seeing what it became. He would not let his kids watch it saying it did not want it to be part of their "intellectual diet". That might sound snooty, but Mr. Farnsworth grew up on a remote farm. He likened how one plows a field to the lines one used to see on analog TV screens that converted serial information into a 2D image.
In the 1960s and '70s there was salient public anxiety about commercial media becoming too socially influential. Now we mostly accept it as a fact of life.
Doesn't it remind you of what computer tech designers say? They feel the same about computers, which are way more dangerous than tvs in controlling minds. They collect our personal data and algorithmically control us as consumers and influence thinking and brainwashing politically.—on a massive scale. How many times have you had an offline conversation and afterward, your phone and computer sent you ads for exactly what you had just discussed? It is petrifying. It is also petrifying how many people are addicted to social media and how negative it is for those for all ages to handle so many made-up comparisons with others or the new, vacuous careers as "influencers."
I know how impacted my own mind has been for eight years of trying to fight this wannabe dictator and his bizarre minions. I have not been able to focus well or read books because I know enough history and studied cult leaders and how they form. I was petrified the first time I heard Convict 34+ speak at one of his rallies in 2016. That dominant male persona Immediately reminded me of a baby Hitler in the way he used repetitive brainwashing tactics. I was put in YT jail for stating that online.
Yesterday, I deliciously finished a thick Barbara Kingsolver book and realized how much I enjoy reading FOR FUN, and the craft of a great writer. I owe my returned focus to Joe Biden for agreeing to step down and support Kamala for the next POTUS. We will continue to be in capable hands with her at the helm. At the same time, we need to keep educating ignorance by increasing massive critical thinking skills across this land at home, in schools, and online.
Computers are more damaging than TV. They’re small enough to carry them with you wherever you go, AND we do!
Hey, dear friend, nice to see you here! Did you see Heather's interview with Brian Tyler Cohen? Worth seeing!
I just watched it. Everyone should watch this interview. Interesting thoughts about controlling the money, and more.
I am going to watch it tonight! Thank you!
Keep
Writing here
Please!
My children were born on the cusp of the 70s. I have never owned a TV. They watched it for two hours at their friends' places after school until I got home from work. Books, ballet, sport, theatre, and we went to the cinema. And music - theirs and mine.
Very similar to our approach in the 70s and 80s: we owned only a small portable tv that we kept in a closet. We put a tv guide with it, and allowed each child to schedule up to four hours of tv per week. Our three children often forgot to watch their scheduled tv for the week. It was very low priority. Of course they occasionally saw tv at friends' houses, but most kids played outside after school and on weekends.
We didn't have a TV in our home in the 50's when I was a kid. By design. We also listened to a wide range of music from Latin records my mom collected to musical theater albums to jazz to classical. I also got classes in ballet, modern dance, drawing, painting, and acting. We also went to kid concerts and theater.
When we did finally get a TV my younger sister and I could only watch while Mom was at work or when she slept in weekend mornings. I read books. I'd like to believe it all made me a critical thinker rather than a mere consumer of advertising-disguised-as-entertainment.
Ms. Luccarini,
I was born in the late 40’s. My Father didn’t allow a tv in our home. I watched it on occasion while late babysitting.
We had piano, flute, dance lessons, books books books and hiking and conversation with and about nature. Then off to college to become a teacher.
We once rented a tv during the morbid and emotional trauma caused by Kennedy’s assassination.
I chose not to have children, but know that I would not have allowed any screens ( cell phones) in their lives today. That is where I see the saddest development of young and old.
Or better said “ non-developed “ young and old.
Yes, Jean(Muriel), but do you own a cat? Apparently that's the defining characteristic of women who don't reproduce, whether by choice or by happenstance.
I have two!! Meow meow. Several of my cats over the years lived to be 23 years old. I have been , since a small child, in love with cats. My father loved them too. I love horses too!🐈⬛🐈🐴🦄🎶👏🏻🥰🤣😂
I had more fun building a TV in an electronics course than watching it. Though there were periods of watching a lot with parents, we had several gaps in even having a tv in the house. After the one I built had the flyback transformer fail, we didn't get another until we got a small portable to watch the 1st Space Shuttle Launch. I watched the Apollo 11 moon landing on an even tinier portable at the gas station across he street from my parent's house.
J L, we not only accept the influence of commercial media as a fact of life, but we carry our televisions in our pockets so that we can view the latest “news” from the moment we awake until we go to sleep.
Yup. And ‘the “news” is caught up in the web of “messengers”… (🫣) keep your sense of humor… and your cautious social skills sharp !
Yes tv rots our brain but I think social media and the internet have done even more damage to society. Practically no one can focus or concentrate for very long, critical thinking is gone, the division and hatred has exploded in the last 10 years or so due to the convicted felon adjudicated rapist using it to spew his hatred everywhere and stir up hatred esp of of minorities and women. Not to mention all the mis and dis information flooding the internet.
Right. In another time, a TV in the living room always turned on in the evening. We thought of nothing else but watching that new media having replaced the radio and FDR Fireside Chats. Screens do inform but too much atrophy’s the brain. Parents made the horrible mistake giving their children cell devises and psychological studies now find the negative effects of this. And worse, social media has damaged young minds for two generations.
I suppose one might call this site social media, but the likes of Facebook seems to me to exploits people at least as much as empower them. I avoid sites that push things at you. Push media makes us passive spectators. There is a place for that, but it can't sustain democracy. Bowing to Mr. "Only I Can Fix It." is exactly what democracy is not. The truth is only we can fix it.
I have used a computer since 1990 for college and then work, Terry. I signed up for social media when it became popular, but I never developed a taste for it; conversations like these are as close as I come. I don't own a TV, but when I did I used it to watch streaming movies. I listen to podcasts or watch them on YouTube. That's how one can sidestep the mis and dis info, algorithmic pandering, etc. Computers don't kill thought, poor education does.
The Internet is much the same phenomenon with new wrinkles. Again, not the technology itself, but how it is dominated. I naively thought that the decentralized architecture of the Internet was inherently democratic, and while I has that capability, as demonstrated here, i was wrong to believe it would resist plutocratic domination. The Internet was created with the public's money by the Department of Defense. For years it was a cooperative DIY environment of monochrome monitors and text only. When Internet multimedia was enabled by Tim Berners-Lee at the CERN particle physics laboratory, the World Wide Web exploded, as, content -wise, a DYI phenomenon. Now commercialization and political propaganda dominates the medium. I should have known that the outcomes of ANY technology depends on who is using it and for what purpose.
I have two tvs and rarely watch them. My screen time is predominately iPad or computer time.
Same here.
TVs are best for entertainment. Ours is black all day long. One hour of news, maybe. Then later, a movie, perhaps. Unless I turn on the ROKU fish tank screensaver. I like how the eel slides in and out of his cave. I am tempted to name him you know what...but perhaps not. I respect eels too much.
Bill, we just cut Comcast cable and now have an antenna which picks up the local stations we want as we do watch an hour of news and sometimes Masterpiece on PBS. We also have a couple options for TV sports because Comcast can't reach an agreement with the Big Ten where Oregon now resides. Other than that, we stream and enjoy productions that, by and large, are not filmed here. We both read voraciously.
I stream stuff too. I stopped watching commercial TV years ago when all the news was a cheering squad for W's invasion of Iraq.
You could call him "Slick Willy," the Bill Clinton social media handle.
Unfortunately a lot of people's (especially the young's) time is predominantly the computer, ipad or phone. Questions don't have to be asked or remembered - "How many yards in a mile? Strike if you looked it up. No need for formal "knowledge any more - or thinking. Google will tell you all. You don't even have to think. . . or question. It's all really easy
What's wrong with looking up an answer to something you're curious about, Lady Emsworth? I absolutely agree that it's great to have relevant data stored in one's natural memory (vs. RAM), but as a nearly 77-year old, I can assure you that memory fades, and it's wonderful to be able to refresh it by online search.
It's also pleasing to have remembered enough to know where to search.
Of course, one of the problems about posting comments, is that it's not a conversation - who has the time?
I look stuff up all the time - no problem with that. But at my stage of life,nobody is asking me to spend precious brain hours learning things off by heart, that are only learned for the sake of passing an exam. And that I will never, ever use again.
For instance - sines, cosines, logarithms.
Though I will say, I have used Pythagoras' theorem quite a bit. . .
I think that information in natural memory tends to become better integrated into one's overall map of reality than freshly "looked up", even if a look-up was its original point of contact. I find that stews are always better the second or third day, more flavors fortuitously come foreground, yet mingled, integrated into the whole. Stuff "cooks" in the mind as well.
That said, at 77 and never the worlds most precise person anyway, I regularly use the Internet to sharpen a memory, or to supplement it. It is a boon to obtain information so widely and easily.
Plus Wikipedia is now being so widely corrected by experts who can quote sources that it's getting more and more quotable.
And I dearly love being able to refresh my memory of old legal cases (holdings, usually), synopses of books I read a long time ago and have since donated, definitions of words so my speech and writing is as precise as I want it to be, etc. I have PLENTY of information available for daily use stored in "the little grey cells", but it's information I use regularly. I don't think I ever knew how many yards were in a mile (when would that ever be useful? - I'm asking seriously), but conversions from degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit, or centimeters to inches, etc., I have on hand.
If I may, I think it's a grave error to assume younger people don't think or question simply because information is readily available. There have always been butterflies flitting around from topic to topic after the equivalent of nectar, and there have always been ants, working to store information - in my opinion, it's a mistake to generalize and thereby disparage all young people.
I'm not complaining they "don't think" - I'm complaining they're not TAUGHT to think. For every ant. you are getting more and more grasshoppers.
I live in a metric country, Lynn. That's the only reason I have 1760 yards to a mile embedded in my brain. How else am I going to estimate what she's talking about when google maps tells me to turn left in 300 meters? This is only to inform you how many yards are in mile. It falls into your category of "information used regularly" for me, but is probably superfluous to most. My gray cells are preoccupied with bilinguality. I didn't make any comment about young people in my post about online references. I think you're referring to Lady Emsworth's post to which I replied.
You're right; sorry, Laura.
Young people are young people, as were we, and our duty is to embrace and empower them. I think we always need to be aware of what we are teaching them, directly and indirectly; by instruction and by example. Will they (and how many) copy puerile and self-centered behavior we see in society today, or endearingly reject it? Do we let them see enough of the caring, responsible behavior we are capable of as well?
In my experience, parents try to prepare kids for an idealized world, then drop the pretense once they are "of age". Ideals are a good thing, but they require consistency to be realized and persevere. The rules we teach kids in the classroom and playground seem to go out the window when we turn to the ways we actually practice politics, and too often in the workplace as well. It's really hard not to take the devil's bargain without sufficient cultural support.
Good post JL Graham. Like the wheel, fire,, gunpowder, and many other inventions of mankind and womankind, television has ability to do great harm, as well as benefit humanity. The late author, renowned scholar, Neil Postman discussed the issue of television madness in his book, Amusing Ourselves To Death. Also potent and valuable reading, his "Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk" worthy of a look. When we can find it, calm is the balm we need going forward. Time hurries on, going forward. Always forward!
Calm is the balm! What I loved, in the "debate", was K Harris's spontaneous and frank laughter whenever Trump said something truly ridiculous. Her eyes sparkled with fun.
A focused, centered adult projects competence in levity, and even in anger. Trump is just a bully. It is something of a mystery to me why anyone would look to the latter for leadership.
I LOVED Amusing Ourselves to Death when I read it 30-some years ago! I amuse myself now by painting, designing furniture, and cooking. I do research online about herbal benefits so I can include plant-based remedies/preventatives in my cooking. Does anyone know how to get turmeric stains off of clothing and cookware?
Dye the garment turmeric color. Ignore it on cookware and plates, etc. Sorry. It's as bad as lily pollen.
That reminds me of an article by the late and very great Katharine Whitehorn back in swinging London - How to choose a carpet for your bedsit: same colour as your favourite wine. (What a wordsmith: in an article on preparing Christmas dinner: "staring into the turkey's gaping maw". ) P.S. I now have a marble cooktop, and just apply undiluted dishwashing liquid vigorously with an abrasive sponge and the turmeric disappears. You have to be quick.
I have not dealt with turmeric stains per se, but we have a nice holiday tablecloth that showed more stains every time it was washed. I soaked it overnight in with some of an "oxy" laundry soak and was amazed by the result. It removed all the old stains with no evident damage to the cloth or print. None were of turmeric though.
Mr Farnsworth was actually a relative. The Farnsworth parents, or grandparents, really, didn't watch television. The ones that now watch FOX are now Trumpers.
Cool. As an nearly lifelong electronics enthusiast (it kind of started before I was 5) I am pleased to make your "acquaintance". I also applaud his victory against rapacious RCA.
True. And most of us do not know how to protect our online identity from hacking.. now carried out by artificial intelligence (AI). Be Aware. And stay Strong… nonetheless!
Your final sentence cannot be repeated enough!
That could be either Kamala Harris or Taylor Swift. Isn't that exciting? Can't stop grinning for joy.
Just read The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger, a best selling German novelist and playwright at the time. He wrote it while in exile in 1933 originally as an anti-Nazi screenplay that the British PM offered to bankroll. When the conservatives in that government killed it out of reluctance to antagonize Hitler, Feuchtwanger turned it into a novel. Per the intro, "it sold an estimated quarter-million copies across the globe...yet it did nothing to alter the appeasement policies" of, well, everyone. It's a great and revealing read. Highly recommend.
Here’s an attempt to define “critical thinking”. I’ll start by defining what critical thinking is not.
An idea pops into tRumps head, and he doesn’t stop to think about it. He just uses it like when an alpha male chimpanzee comes across a tree branch lying on the ground and decides to swing it every which way in a dominance display.
A critical thinker reflects about who is being served versus who is paying the price before responding.
We live in a social system, and the way we respond changes the system for better or for worse. If our response is adaptive, then things are likely to get better. If our response is maladaptive, then things are certain to get worse.
Sometimes we don’t know what to do, but we need to do something. No response is a maladaptive response in that the system is changing regardless of whether we are adapting to the change. So, we often need to learn with experiments whilst hopefully keeping the blast area as small as possible. But ultimately, our response will not be adaptive until our understanding of the system's current state is sufficiently accurate. And that is challenging.
The easy part is knowing that we are serving the system at our short-term expense, and then benefitting in the long term from the system’s strength, or we are benefiting in the short term at the system’s expense, and then suffering in the long term from the system’s weakness.
James, I believe critical thinking starts with gathering data and moves on to analyze said data using logic. One must put aside bias confirmation, as best one can, and eliminate fallacious "data." What remains is factual, and from facts one can determine actions and attitudes.
I like to distinguish between what I think (opinions), what I believe (values), and what I know (proven facts).
The other important attribute of critical thought is that one changes opinions, values, and accepted facts when new information is discovered. This is especially important in the arena of science, where new research findings often contradict previously held conclusions. The hallmark of poor thinking is to cling to one's original stance regardless of new info. Such individuals often expend more mental energy defending their position than on vetting new info for validity.
Validation and logic are also beneficial in politics. I entertained the idea of RFK Jr. until he publicly discussed bio-engineered Covid virus that would target certain ethnicities. Since ethnicities are not genetically different, such a thing is impossible, plus there was significant evidence that the target groups had succumbed to Covid at the same rate as others. I concluded that Bobby Jr. was either an idiot if he believed this putative research group's theory, or irresponsible if he didn't believe it but gave it a public platform all the same. Either way I deemed him unfit to be our chief executive.
Scientific facts are never entirely settled, which furthers science though constant re-examination, but many conclusions appear to merit a very high degree of confidence. "Clean" logic and evidence provide the confidence. Duplicated experiments should produce the same results, or region of results. Science is always updating. I think an archetypal exchange was evident in a NYT story from 2004:
Dr. Shenker said it would be great to find out that string theory was right.
From the audience Dr. Greene piped up, "Wouldn't it be great either way?"
"Are you kidding me, Brian?" Dr. Shenker responded. "How many years have you sweated on this?"
But if string theory is wrong, Dr. Greene argued, wouldn't it be good to know so physics could move on? "Don't you want to know?" he asked.
The notion that "dispassionate" research is performed by passionless people (eg, "Mr. Spock" isn't it at all, but rather the "kiss the joy as it flies" willingness to honor reality (so far as we can best determine) rather than one's druthers, as the authority; and as you indicate. Some people won't learn because they are too attached to an idea.
RFKjr seems like a very lazy thinker, with unearned influence. I believe that the possibility of race specific viral agents has been discussed speculatively by some geneticists, but no such thing appears to currently exist. There are genetic differences related to race, but they are trivial; not at all the proof of superiority or inferiority self-aggrandizing supremacists are yearning to see. RFKjr's understanding of what vaccination actually does to forewarn the human immune system in truly appalling.
This from Prof. Carlos Frenk, Dept. of Physics, Director of the Institute of Computational Cosmology, Durham University: "If it turns out to be that the universe is not made up of cold dark matter, I will be rather depressed. Given that I’ve worked all my life on cold dark matter, I would be disappointed, but not for very long, because that’s the way that science is. You have to accept the evidence. If it turns out that I’ve wasted my life working on the wrong hypothesis, so be it. What I really want to know is, what is the universe made of? Let it be cold. Let it be warm. I just want to know what it is."
Thank God some people understand science.
I'm not very scientifically minded, JL. I got to my appreciation for science's
temporality when an anti-vaxxer I know wanted a public apology from Fauci for incorrect statements he had made early in the pandemic. I said that I doubted he lied or intentionally deceived, he was just wrong. He changed his position when he learned more. She couldn't hear it; she was caught up in villainizing Fauci rather than in considering how information changes one's views, if one is intellectually honest.
She also kept pushing the notion that more study on vaxx alternatives is needed. I thought about how science works and told her that overwhelming evidence from many many disparate studies had demonstrated that vaccines are effective and safe for the vast majority of people. In a time of pandemic, public policy needed to be set from the most conclusive data available in the moment. Those who track a more effective Covid therapy than the current vaccines will undoubtedly publish their findings when and if there ever are any. Meanwhile we have to rely on the best and most prevalent data. She accused me of being a sheeple and ranted about how Fauci and the CDC were preventing &/or hiding alt research in collusion with corrupt big money pharma. I told her I didn't think we could discuss this topic because we approach it from such different philosophies. We are no longer friends.
Thanks, JL. ("Regular Reader").
Saying to me that the hallmark of poor thinking is to cling to one's original stance regardless of new info, and that such individuals often expend more mental energy defending their position than on vetting new info for validity, is preaching to the choir.
Does critical thinking involve gathering and analyzing data using logic? Absolutely. And where confirmation bias is an issue due to excluded or fallacious data, then it needs to be effectively addressed. But that’s not where critical thinking begins.
Hypothetically, two parties are interacting in a familiar context, and their interactions are mutually beneficial, but then a novel context emerges, and their interactions are now unilaterally beneficial. Fortunately, both parties are skilled critical thinkers, and they agree to use that skill to resolve the conflict. The first question is, what is the objective? Specifically, what interest is being served, in what time frame, and at whose expense?
A mutually agreeable objective is a prerequisite to a mutually agreeable conflict resolution. The latter is the analysis part, and the former is the synthesis part.
The odds that two parties will resolve their between-party conflicts even if they both use perfect logic and the same data, but they don’t start by establishing a mutually agreeable objective, is virtually zero. That’s the point I was trying to make in my previous comment.
I see two objectives, James. One is peaceable conflict resolution, the other is determination of facts in order to formulate actions and values. The former requires mutual agreement, as you say; the latter doesn't. You and I may agree on facts, even if they're only provisional, and still decide on different courses of action. For instance we may both want to see Trump defeated and agree that he's a dangerous lunatic. I may prioritize his misogyny and you may feel more strongly about national security; even though both of us agree that each other's reasons for disliking him are true and valid, we're still different people, and because of our different histories will find one trait more loathsome than the other. You may be content with him losing the election, while I may want to see him incarcerated. We don't have to agree on values or outcomes to agree on what is true.
We share the intent of defeating a dangerous lunatic. But why? Because our interpretation of the facts is sufficiently accurate in that regard. That does not mean that when we start with the same facts, we must both end with the same interpretation. The question is whether conflict is the effect of our different determinations, and whether we then have a mutual intent to resolve the conflict.
In other words, there's a tolerance range. Do your own thing and it's none of my damn business. But "I'll mind my own damn business" was the opposite of what Tim Walz was thinking as a teacher when he learned that LGBTQ students were being treated with distain by their fellow students.
So, yes, at some point the determination of facts in order to formulate actions and values does require mutual agreement. What's the alternative? The alternative is some version of "I'm right, you're wrong, and this conversation is over." That is the only message Donald Trump has ever known how to communicate. And practice makes perfect.
James, Trump can no longer control his thoughts or emotions. It’s a major symptom of cognitive dysfunction. In his case, dementia.
I agree, but the question is not whether Trump can control his thoughts and emotions. The question is why otherwise perfectly rational people are thinking of voting for him. And the answer is that they don't practice critical thinking. If they drove the way they think, there'd be so many car accidents it wouldn't be safe to drive.
There were a ton of Americans who openly supported the Nazis and Hitler before WWII. Those types of Americans are still out there and there are millions of them.